I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for performing positioning.
II. Background
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting communication for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, and Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks.
It is often desirable, and sometimes necessary, to know the location of a terminal in a wireless network. The terms “location” and “position” are synonymous and are used interchangeably herein. For example, a user may utilize the terminal to browse through a website and may click on location sensitive content. The location of the terminal may then be determined and used to provide appropriate content to the user. There are many other scenarios in which knowledge of the location of the terminal is useful or necessary.
Some wireless networks such as CDMA networks can readily support positioning. These wireless networks may have many base stations that transmit signals encoded with timing information. The location of a terminal may be determined based on timing measurements for a sufficient number of base stations and known fixed locations of these base stations. In some wireless networks, the locations of the transmitters may not be known or there may be uncertainty in the transmitter locations. Nevertheless, it may be desirable to determine the location of a terminal in such a wireless network.